User:Liberlogos/Answer to A Warning to Belfast

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http://infotrac.galegroup.com.res.banq.qc.ca/itw/infomark/698/160/28523912w16/purl=rc1_TTDA_0_CS218681160&dyn=52!xrn_45_0_CS218681160&hst_1?sw_aep=biblioquebes

The Times, Monday, Oct 08, 1888; pg. 13

Letters to the Editor

Sir, - I have read with much interest Professor Goldwin Smith's letter entitled " A Warning to Belfast " which appeared in a recent issue of The Times. Having lately returned from Canada after a residence there of 15 years, I know something of the country and am able to bear witness to the truth of every statement made regarding the French population of the province of Quebec by the learned Professor in his letter. There is a remarkable similarity in character and habits between the French of Quebec and the Celtic Irish. Both are alike bigoted Roman Catholics and are equally ignorant, superstitious, and preist-ridden. They are both alike agressive in their temper and are similarily animated by hostility to England and hatred to Protestantism. Both are clannish in their habits and have a similarily low standard of comfort. Both races possess extraordinary fecondity and multiply more rapidly than the Anglo-Saxons. Like the Irish of the colonies and the United States, the French-Canadians are inveterate politicians and office-seekers, and are utterly unscrupulous as to the means by which they may obtain power or place. Even in their virtues they are alike, in the gaiety of their temper and their love of music, song, and dance. Such being the similarity of the two races, we are perfectly justified in looking to Quebec, as it is under French-Canadian rule, for a counterpart of what Ireland would be under Home Rule. The priest there is supreme, the education and intelligence of the masses at the lowest notch, and the Protestant element in the population, as Professor Goldwin Smith says, is being rapidly eliminated. In any rural district in Quebec, where the Protestants are in a minority, they speedily discover that they cannot continue to live there.